"All orchids start their first years as small protocorms, basically a leaf attached to a very small tuber," she says.

"We've watched as each summer they go dormant, to a tuber, then each year they grow back again, putting up little curly leaves.

"This is the first year they've put up a flower spike."

Exceptionally uncommon in the wild, Queen of Sheba orchids can only thrive with a lucky combination of perfect timing, perfect soil and perfect pollination.

"Orchids are more intricate in terms of their interaction with their ecosystem than any other plants," Dr Davis says.

"They have relationships with below-ground fungi, to get nutrients…and to germinate.

"Above-ground they form relationships with their pollinators."

These relationships, Dr Davis says, can be highly specialised, with some orchids relying on sexual lures to trick pollinators into trying to mate with their flowers, while others use UV signals to attract attention.

The Queen of Sheba's technique, it seems, is playing hard-to-get, then offering suitors a sweet nectar reward.

The Queen of Sheba. Credit: Belinda Davis
"The flowers only open on warm sunny days, the rest of the time they stay closed," Dr Davis says.

"This encourages pollinators to visit in large numbers during one event, increasing the likelihood of depositing pollen from a neighbouring Queen of Sheba."

Dr Davis' research indicates habitat loss, rather than pollination woes or missing fungi, is limiting the spread of WA's native orchids.

"Clearing land for housing or agriculture means there's only pockets of bushland left where they could possibly colonise," she says.

Dr Davis says she is enjoyed watching and waiting each year as the baby Queen of Sheba orchids have grown from propagated seeds, each painstakingly collected with their requisite fungi.

The Queen of Sheba. Credit: Gail Read
"One day, hopefully we can bump up our population a bit more; it would be amazing to put them on public display," she says.

Till then, she encourages wildflower enthusiasts who may be out this wildflower season to take care in their hunt.

"It's a case of being lucky and keeping an eye out," she says.

"We want people to appreciate orchids in their natural habitat, but some populations are heavily visited, and unfortunately occasionally plants do get taken.

Related Stories

(Phys.org)—An international team of researchers has conducted a broad scale phylogeny of orchids for the first time and in so doing have uncovered many of the reasons for their broad diversity. In their paper published ...

A new study reveals the reason why orchids use sexual trickery to lure insect pollinators. The study, published in the January issue of The American Naturalist, finds that sexual deception in orchids leads to a more efficient ...

When it comes to conserving the world's orchids, not all forests are equal. In a paper to be published Jan. 25 in the journal Molecular Ecology, Smithsonian ecologists revealed that an orchid's fate hinges on two factors: ...

In terms of diversity, orchids are one of the most successful groups of flowering plants, with over 22,000 species. Both pollinating animals and mycorrhizal fungi are believed to have been important in the diversification ...

Recommended for you

Using a new type of dual polymer material capable of responding dynamically to its environment, Brown University researchers have developed a set of modular hydrogel components that could be useful in a variety of "soft robotic" ...

When more women are involved in group decisions about land management, the group conserves more—particularly when offered financial incentives to do so, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study published ...

A new study by UAlberta biologists shows the first evidence of apoptosis, or programmed cell death in algae. The outcomes have broad-reaching implications, from the development of targeted antibiotics to the production of ...

New photonic tools for medical imaging can be used to understand the nonlinear behavior of laser light in human blood for theranostic applications. When light enters biological fluids it is quickly scattered, however, some ...

One of the ocean's little known carnivores has been allocated a new place in the evolutionary tree of life after scientists discovered its unmistakable resemblance with other sea-floor dwelling creatures.

In research that casts cells as curators of their own history, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have discovered that adult tissues retain a memory, inscribed on their DNA, of the embryonic cells from which they arose. ...

0 comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.